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Book of Hours, Use of Paris

A work made of woodcut and letterpress in black with brush and gouache, and pen and ink on vellum (discolored at edges), in eighteenth-century full red goatskin, sewn on raised bands, with cambridge-style gold tooling, rolled edges in gold, gold stamped spine decoration, hand-sewn silk headbands, and marbled endsheets.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of woodcut and letterpress in black with brush and gouache, and pen and ink on vellum (discolored at edges), in eighteenth-century full red goatskin, sewn on raised bands, with cambridge-style gold tooling, rolled edges in gold, gold stamped spine decoration, hand-sewn silk headbands, and marbled endsheets.

Date:

1508

Artist:

Simon Vostre
French, flourished 1486-1518

About this artwork

Books of hours printed on vellum capitalized on the desirability of more expensive illuminated manuscripts. The coloring of this example is limited to blue and red in the initials, while its full-page woodcuts, such as this Nativity, help organize the book’s religious content, including the devotional calendar. Simon Vostre reprinted the metalcut borders from his earlier printed books of hours opposite woodcuts from Vostre’s Grandes Heures, now attributed to Jean Pichore. The cutting of the Pichore blocks is finely detailed, with figures and architectural motifs larger than the three-quarter-page metalcuts from the 1490s, suggesting that the clientele had new expectations of an Italianate Renaissance style.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Simon Vostre

Title

Book of Hours, Use of Paris

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1508

Medium

Woodcut and letterpress in black with brush and gouache, and pen and ink on vellum (discolored at edges), in eighteenth-century full red goatskin, sewn on raised bands, with Cambridge-style gold tooling, rolled edges in gold, gold stamped spine decoration, hand-sewn silk headbands, and marbled endsheets

Dimensions

22.6 × 30 cm (8 15/16 × 11 13/16 in.)

Credit Line

Clarence Buckingham Collection

Reference Number

1945.224

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/53311/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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